Fake drug evidence was used in Raleigh heroin trafficking charges, Wake DA says

The Wake County district attorney is investigating cases of false evidence being used to make more than a dozen drug arrests.

The Raleigh Police Department is also investigating, according to ABC11, The News & Observer’s news partner. A Raleigh police detective, Omar Abdullah, is on leave while the investigation continues. Abdullah used a confidential informant in drug cases where the substances used as evidence turned out not to be drugs, ABC11 reported.

In an interview Thursday, Wake District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said the cases date from December 2019 to May, and the confidential informant was used to purchase what purported to be heroin.

A defense attorney with a client who said the evidence wasn’t real first raised an issue in February, Freeman said. As evidence was sent to be tested and results came back at the end of June and early July showing it wasn’t drugs, prosecutors saw a pattern and started reviewing videos in those cases.

“A red flag popped up,” Freeman said.

The office began to unsecure bonds and moved to dismiss cases, Freeman said.

“This is an egregious situation inasmuch as the confidential informant was providing false information,” Freeman said.

None of the people arrested in those cases plead to heroin trafficking charges, Freeman said, but there is one case where her office has told a defense attorney that prosecutors are willing to set aside a conviction for a drug-related plea.

The Raleigh Police Department had not responded by Thursday morning to a request for public information about Abdullah. Freeman said he has been on the drug unit for three years.

Freeman said her office has found no evidence that Abdullah conspired with the informant or knew the drugs were fake.

“At this point, we don’t have any basis to have a criminal investigation open on Detective Abdullah,” she said. “This is the first time we’ve heard concerns about any of his cases.”